The thing I don't get is why the installation I had made worked in the first place (unless something about the environment changed between the time of installation and yesterday).

I am using XML::Twig as one of the modules and conveniently enought XML::Parser allows you to build with a local installation of the expat library. However the interesting thing I am encountering now is a message about what I assume is deferencing, disallowing the use of $digit in this case $1.

I haven't had this sort of trouble on servers running more recent installations of perl so I am sending polite emails to its administrators telling them to update their perl installation (Currently runs 5.004_5 on debian, I don't know whether mod_perl is installed).
If worse comes to worse I was thinking of persuading my client to change their account to one of the hosts I use.

Then I got to thinking, it's probably not a good idea, but with all of this tainting of environment variables that people have been doing, it is a possibility to create my own installation of perl at the version I require in the user's directory. This also depends on the amount of space allocated for the account. Tell me are these just the thoughts of an over caffienated, sleep deprived maniac....